


to rent this little nest and get a bit of rest

by pocky_slash



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, M/M, Old Age, Old mutants in love, Sleep, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 22:23:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/590301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik wakes with the sun, but it's hard to stay that way with Charles curled so comfortably in their bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to rent this little nest and get a bit of rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ninemoons42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/gifts).



> For **ninemoons42** 's prompt of "Sleep cute" in Secret Mutant Madness. I...may have not actually gotten to the sleeping part. Whoops? Thanks for all the encouragement you bring to this fandom, bb ♥

It's a nice little house on the Cape, as these things go. Charles had certainly been thrilled by it, pointing out various architectural aspects that the real estate agent had cooed at and agreed with. It was a whole other language, harder to parse than any that Erik had tried to learn in the past. What matters to Erik is the slope that it was built on. It's one floor, but the back has a balcony that looks over towards the ocean.

"It's the balcony that ratchets up the price," Charles had explained when Erik had gawked at the closing papers. "Prime location, yes, but it's very small and with only the one bedroom, not necessarily a hot commodity. That balcony, though. That's something."

"It's not something worth that much, I'd think," Erik had murmured.

"Anything for you, my love," Charles said as he signed on the dotted line.

Erik likes balconies. He likes being able to see into the distance. He likes the feeling of control. Their bedroom in the house has moved over the years--Charles' childhood room when they first came to the mansion, a room on the first floor in the aftermath of Cuba, the master suite once the elevator was put in, and now, after the latest renovation, the last room on the highest floor. They've a balcony that looks out on the whole back of the estate. It's beautiful in all weather, and Erik grades and reads and drinks his coffee and thinks and works out there whenever he can. Charles joins him, on occasion, but Erik knows it's an indulgence rather than any personal appreciation for the location.

Erik likes to feel the breeze. Charles just likes to feel Erik, warm and close by.

Erik can't say he has a problem with that.

They bought the beach house after the third of what Jean called their "August Fights." After ten months of teaching and six weeks of rushing about to do everything they couldn't attend to during the school year--recruitment, political meetings, renovations, curriculum reassessments--things had a habit of coming to a head in early August after one too many sleepless nights in the dense summer air. There were raised voices and sharp words and tears on both sides. The wrought iron fence around the rose garden will never quite look the way it did before the second of the arguments. They were cutthroat and after the third one, Armando, Moira, and Raven herded them into Charles' office and told them, effective immediately, August first through August twenty-first were their permanent vacation dates. 

Erik was angry at the time--enraged, actually. He shouted at the three of them, which left Charles shouting at him, but in the years since he's come to appreciate the time. Some days it feels like he and Charles are miles apart, even when they're in the same building. It's nice to know, on those days, that at least he has this to look forward to.

It's early, yet; Erik was up for the sunrise. His internal clock has not slowed with age and there's a moment each morning when he clicks from asleep to awake. It's hard to fight and usually not worth the effort. Today, though. Today Charles is curled in the sheets, bare beneath them and pink skinned in the light pouring into the room. In sleep, the lines on his face disappear, his anxieties nebulous and far away, if only for a few hours. He's beautiful in repose--he's beautiful always, even when he's shouting at Erik--no, especially when he's shouting at Erik. But here, lying in the sheets of this bed they bought together in this house they bought together, he's particularly magnificent. 

They have their school and Charles repeats, over and over, and it's _their_ school. That it's Erik's, too. And Erik believes him, of course. It's been fifty years--it's sunken in long ago. But it's a school they share with so many others. It's a sanctuary for all that need it. Erik appreciates that. It makes his heart swell in his chest, knowing the good they've done for souls as lost as he was long ago.

Erik is a selfish man, though, and while the school belongs to everyone, this house belongs to them alone. This is for him and Charles and no one else. In these walls, there are no insistent students or questioning staff. There's Charles and there's Erik and that's all there needs to be. There are long days when they don't even leave the bed, when Erik renews his claim on every inch of Charles' skin, steals every breath with a kiss or a whisper of devotion.

And there are days like today, when Erik looks at Charles lying in their bed, his body still curled in counterpoint to the impression of Erik's left in the sheets, and can no longer stand not being nearer to him. The sun is already climbing through the sky and Erik's mind is already tick-tick-ticking away, but none of that matters. He pulls the gauzy curtains to the balcony closed, but leaves the doors open and returns to bed, presses himself against Charles in the early morning sunlight. Because there's a freedom to feeling the breeze, to seeing for miles around, but it's nothing compared to the freedom he feels in this. The freedom that comes from knowing that Charles is right here in his arms, that of all the places in the world that Charles could choose to be, he chooses this. Every day he chooses Erik, he stays with Erik, he gives Erik everything of himself.

It's powerful and humbling both. It's a feeling so warm that it supersedes the need for blankets. Who needs to see for miles around when all he needs is this cocoon? It can cover them well enough, heavy and full and surrounding them from all sides as they lie together in this bed, in their bed, skin pressed together, hearts beating in time.


End file.
